I came to screenwriting after many years of another creative pursuit...software development. When I was 10 years old I recorded the soundtrack from "Forbidden Planet", and copied the entire dialogue, adding action from what I remembered. There was no Internet, no DVRs, no VHS, and no place to buy a script, but I had to hold the movie in my hands. I did this line by line on a manual typewriter, stopping the tape after each line.
I also cut "paper figures" out of Marvel Comic books (Spiderman, of course) and re-posed them (cheap compositing) in my own scenes. Even then I was motivated to create a "film". I drove my sister crazy, enlisting her in all these pursuits.
I literally built a set in my room in the late 60's, and outfitted it as the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise, and invited close friends to stage our own productions. I only had a still camera and two reel-to-reel recorders and my Dad's reel-to-reel, but I managed to cut-out all the music and sound effects and reassemble it onto a master tape with my own dialog.
A decades-long diversion to software kept me abreast of all the audio-visual software, and finally I have the time to sit and write a feature length film of my own, and consider storyboarding it. I also co-developed the supporting CG character with an artist in Costa Rica.
"If your dreams don't scare you...they aren't big enough".
Unique traits: I have a talent for writing deeply imaginative situations. People often tell me, "You MUST write...you are an excellent storyteller". My dreams are where I get most of my storyline ideas and sense of visual presentation. I'm excellent at "allegorizing" any real life situation, and I believe in more "distant" allegories instead of just telling your own real-life personal story unless it contains drama that anyone can relate to. I am a fan of prioritizing DRAMA over MAYHEM. Drama is what rivets the attention, not the visual/aural mayhem in a film. A film is like a symphony, the pianissimos deserve as much attention as the fortissimos
UnMatched Drama “The gift of a magical rose tragically separates teenaged sweethearts, but later guides one of them in search of his perfect match with surprising results”